THE OLD GRAVEYARD
"What do you mean?" asked Don Juan.
The old man glanced at me quickly, an anxious look in his eyes.
I looked him straight in the face in return.
"Don Juan," I replied, "Dolores and I love one another."
The anxious look faded into one of softness, and he commenced walking
backwards and forwards in the room, without answering me.
Presently he stopped and faced me again, and in his old eyes, which
were blue like his daughter's, there were tears.
"I will not conceal from you, Anstruther," he began, "the fact that
your affection for Dolores has been apparent to me for some time past,
and has given me cause for much thought. Not that I have distrusted
you, remember," he added with a kind glance.
"I am not often deceived in a man, and I think I could trust my child
to you." I gave a great gasp of pleasure, but he added immediately,
"under certain circumstances."
"And those circumstances?" I asked anxiously.
"First," he began as he sank into an arm-chair, "you are of different
religions; you are not a Catholic, I understand."
I answered him smiling.
"I don't think we shall disagree over that," I replied, "Dolores and
her children shall worship the Almighty as she wishes. My religion is
that of a man of the world, I worship with all."
The old man nodded his grey head and smiled.
"I did not expect you to be very bigoted," he answered quietly.
"Now, there is another point, Don Juan," I continued, "upon which I
must satisfy you, and that is my ability to keep a wife."
I told him of my little estate in Hampshire with its small manor house
on the shores of the Solent, and how I had let it to a yachting man who
had taken a fancy to it; it being too large for my modest bachelor
wants. I told him proudly of my balance at the bank, swelled by the
thousand of the old lady of Monmouth Street, of which he already knew.
I told him what my income was from every source, and finally what I
succeeded in wringing annually from the publishing body. This last
item seemed to amuse him mightily, despite his polite effort to listen
to me with becoming solemnity.
"Very good, very good, Anstruther," he said at last encouragingly, "I
see you are quite capable of maintaining a wife in a modest way. It is
very creditable to you, too, that you have taken to making money by
your pen. With regard to Dolores, however, should she become your
wife, she is not likely to be a burden to you financially. She will,
in the first place, become entitled on her marriage to an income of
fifty thousand dollars, which arises from property which I settled upon
her mother.
"Then, she is my only child as you know, and I shall make a further
settlement upon her. My income has been accumulating for years, I want
but little; when I die she and her children will have _all_."
The amount he mentioned certainly took my breath away, but I raised my
hand and asked him to stop.
"Believe me, Don Juan," I said, "I should be a happier man if I could
supply her wants by the work of my hands."
"I _do_ believe you," he answered, "and those would be my own
sentiments exactly under similar circumstances. You will, however, not
find a good income a bar to marital happiness if used judiciously. But
enough of financial matters; I wish to come to another more important
point. I believe it that Dolores loves you; from my own observations I
believe she does, but I must hear it from her own lips.
"Should it prove to be the case, which I do not doubt, then I will give
my consent to your marriage."
I rushed forward joyfully to thank him, for I knew what Dolores' answer
would be, but he held up his finger to check me.
"I will give my consent under those circumstances," he continued, "on
_one_ condition."
"And that?" I asked eagerly.
He did not answer me at once; he sat in his chair, with his hand to his
forehead, thinking.
Then he lifted his head.
"Sit down and listen to me, Anstruther," he said; "I want you to follow
exactly what I say.
"When you arrived in Valoro six weeks ago, and gave me that casket, you
reopened an episode in my life closed many many years ago."
He spoke with great emotion and his lip trembled. I even saw a tear
coursing down his sunburnt cheek.
"Since then," he continued, "you have very kindly followed me in the
fulfilment of certain duties which devolved upon me upon opening that
packet. You have followed me without question, as became a gentleman,
taking an old man's word that all was well. In keeping that silence of
delicacy, Anstruther, you have unwittingly done me a great service; you
have left me unhampered to fulfil that which I had to do."
He paused and placed his fingers together in deep thought.
"I place myself mentally," he continued, "in your position, and I try
to think as you think--try to realise your feelings: the appeal you
received from the old lady as she stood at the door of the house in
Monmouth Street, your acceding to her request, your second visit, the
discovery of the tragedy, the undeserved misfortunes that fell upon you
in consequence, your fidelity to your promise to the lady who was at
best a mere chance acquaintance, the impenetrable mystery which
surrounds it all.
"I have thought of it, and I feel that you must be consumed with a
great and reasonable curiosity.
"That you have not indulged that reasonable curiosity, that you have
maintained a discreet silence under very trying circumstances has
caused a very good first impression of you to grow into one of respect
and strong regard."
He rose and took my hand in both his, the tears running down his cheeks.
"Anstruther," he continued, mastering his emotion with an effort, "I am
going to ask a further sacrifice from you as a condition of my consent
to your marriage with Dolores--a very necessary condition, or I would
not make it.
"Anstruther, I ask you to keep eternal silence on what has occurred to
you since you entered the door of the house in Monmouth Street, that
dull evening in November. I ask you never to refer to it again from
this moment, in any shape or form.
"Tell me, can you make this promise?"
I stood with my hand in his, my eyes fixed on his kind old face working
with emotion.
"And this is the final condition you ask," I replied, "to my union with
Dolores? You are satisfied in every other way?"
"I am satisfied," he replied; "I ask no more."
"Then I give you my promise," I replied, gripping his hand hard; "the
subject to me shall be dead. God help me to keep my word!"
* * * * *
My future father-in-law and I sat chatting an hour longer over the
bright fire in the sitting-room while the gloaming of a February day
was deepening without, and he had talked to me with the familiarity
accorded to one already admitted to his family circle.
Dolores had gone to a concert at the Assembly Rooms and we did not
expect her back until between five and six.
It was when we had both paused in our conversation and sat with our
eyes fixed on the leaping flames--the only illumination of the
room--that a knock came at the door and a waiter entered.
"A gentleman to see you, sir," he said, addressing Don Juan.
"Who is it?" d'Alta asked.
"I think it is one of the police officers, sir," replied the man; "he
gave the name of Bull."
"Ah! it's the inspector, evidently," commented the Don. "Show him up.
I wonder whatever Inspector Bull can want," he continued, turning to
me; "we only left him an hour or two ago."
The inspector came to answer for himself. The waiter threw open the
door and he entered.
I saw at once that he had something of importance to communicate. His
demeanour was that of the Duke of Wellington on the morning of Waterloo.
"Certain information of importance," he commenced, after we had greeted
him, "having come to 'and this afternoon, sir, I thought it well to
come round and see you immediate."
The inspector's eyes wandered round the apartment. There was a
sideboard certainly; previous experience on former visits had, however,
taught him to expect nothing from it. The foreign Don was evidently an
advocate of temperance, like so many other foreigners who could not
drink good, honest English beer--well seasoned with noxious chemicals.
"Indeed," commented Don Juan, who had received several of these
mysterious visits before, and did not on that account expect much from
this one. "What have you discovered?"
"It 'pears," continued the police officer, "that just after dinner
to-day some children was playing in the little disused graveyard in the
rear of 190 Monmouth Street."
From being a listless listener I became an earnest one immediately; an
idea concerning that graveyard had crossed my mind that very morning
while I contemplated its dismal gravestones, almost hidden in old rank
grass, through the open ironwork forming the upper part of the gate
which shut it off from the little strip of sloping garden in rear of
190 Monmouth Street. In my walk backwards and forwards, while I waited
for Don Juan and the lawyer, Mr. Fowler, during their examination of
the safe, I had come back to that iron grating again and again. It had
somehow fascinated me.
"These 'ere children," proceeded the inspector, "was playing round the
gravestones, and jumpin' over 'em to keep warm. It was while they were
jumpin' and shovin' each other about over the graves that they noticed
that the top stone of a great flat old grave was loose, and, of course,
they started to make it looser by see-sawing it, until one fat boy
jumped it a bit too 'eavy, and it tilted and let him in."
"In where?" I asked quickly.
"Into a new-made grave, sir," he answered solemnly--"a grave what had
been dug recently under the old stone."
"Whatever for?" asked Don Juan.
"That's just where it is," replied the officer; "that's just what we
want to find out. The grave is about half filled in with loose earth.
We want to know what's under that loose earth, and that's why I'm here."
"What have we got to do with it?" asked the Don.
"The theory is, sir," replied Bull, "that _something_ is buried under
that loose earth. It may be stolen property. It may be a _body_."
I think both Don Juan and I whitened at the prospect disclosed by the
inspector, but the Don soon recovered himself. He did not seem so
affected by it as I imagined he would be.
"What do you propose to do?" he asked.
"We propose," answered the inspector, "to at once have the loose earth
cleared out and see what's underneath."
"Do you mean now?" I asked. "Why, it is quite dark."
"We mean to put two workmen on to dig out that earth at once, sir, and
I want you and this gentleman, sir," he added, with a bow to the Don,
"to come and be present. _There might be something to identify_."
"Identify!" I exclaimed, rather horrified at the prospect; "what could
we identify in the dark?"
"There'll be plenty of light, sir," answered Bull. "We shall bring
half a dozen lanterns; besides, the moon will be up in half an hour's
time."
I looked at Don Juan.
"Do you intend to go?" I asked.
The old man sprang to his feet.
"Though I believe the search may be a fruitless one," he answered, "I
will miss no opportunity. I will certainly accompany the inspector."
The latter at once rose to his feet with a look of satisfaction on his
large face.
"I thought you would, sir," he answered, with a broad smile; "but I
should advise you, sir, if I might be so bold, to _wrop_ up well, as
the job may be a longish one, and them graveyards is very damp."
Don Juan rang the bell for his valet to fetch him a fur-lined overcoat,
and I told the waiter to tell my man Brooks to bring mine.
At my suggestion, the Don ordered some liquid refreshment for the
inspector. Scotch, cold, proved to be his selection, and he stood
imbibing it, while we waited, commenting upon its excellent qualities
for "keeping out the cold," a theory which I have since learned is
totally erroneous.
Presently the coats came, and we followed the inspector down to the
door of the hotel, where a closed fly was already awaiting us. We
drove away through the brilliantly lighted city to the neighbourhood of
long, dismal Monmouth Street on the hillside, but this time we did not
drive down the street itself but took a turning which ran below it.
"The gate of the old burial ground," explained the police officer, "is
in this street. It will be far more convenient to enter it this way
than by going round by Monmouth Street."
At the old-fashioned, sunken iron gateway of the dreary looking,
neglected graveyard a policeman was standing, apparently keeping guard.
He might have saved himself the trouble, for, with the exception of two
poor-looking little children--one standing with his mouth open and a
forgotten hoop and stick in his hand--the place was deserted.
We received the constable's salute and, passing through the rusty iron
gate which he held open for us, came at once among the long wet grass
and sunken, often lopsided, tombs. On the farther side of the ground
another constable stood with a lighted lantern, and near him two
labouring men, with spades and picks leaning against an old stone by
them. These latter hastily put out their pipes as we approached.
I was curious to see what sort of tomb this was which had been
apparently so desecrated, and followed the inspector towards it at his
invitation.
"This is the grave I told you about, gentlemen," he said, indicating it
with his finger; "you will see they have lifted the top stone off."
It was a very large tomb of the description called "altar tombs," but
the flat stone which covered it lay by its side, and the rotten state
of the low brickwork which had supported it accounted for its giving
way, even with the boy's weight.
The inspector took a lantern and held it inside the broken brickwork;
yes, there could be no doubt the grave had been disturbed, and that
recently.
Freshly turned earth lay between the walls of brickwork, which were
spacious enough to allow of an ordinary-sized grave being dug within
them.
"Is the grave just as it was found?" I asked.
"Exactly, Mr. Anstruther," he answered. "The earth has not been
disturbed at all. But I think we'll make a start now. Here comes Dr.
Burbridge, the officer of health. We thought it better to have him
present."
The figure of a man wearing a tall hat now appeared crossing the
graveyard, preceded by a constable bearing a lantern.
After briefly introducing the newcomer, the inspector gave the word to
the two labourers, and they scrambled inside the broken brickwork and
commenced digging.
I looked round the weird spot as the noise of their spades became
monotonous, relieved only by the throwing aside of the great lumps of
moist earth; a mist was rising from the river flowing near, of which in
the first stillness of our coming I could just catch the ripple of the
water. It seemed to me that those who were long buried there had in
life perhaps had some association with the river--even an affection for
it--and had wished to be laid there near its soft murmur while they
slept.
The men dug on and the pile of earth they threw up grew and grew; it
was very clear that the old ground had been recently broken, and a new
grave carefully shaped out of it. The sides were compact and firm and
had not been disturbed, perhaps, for a whole century.
I glanced at the stone which had been removed, thinking, perhaps, that
it might give me a clue to the date of the grave, but, alas, time and
the weather had rotted the soft stone and it had come off in layers.
The face of the stone was a blank, and the names of those who lay
beneath lost for ever.
The moon had risen and the men had dug down perhaps four feet, but
nothing had come to light. Then, as they were proceeding after a brief
halt, one of them gave a cry.
"There's something here, marster!" he cried excitedly.
At the sound of his voice all the lanterns were brought to the edge of
the grave, and we looked down into the hole, which the bright moonbeams
did not reach. It was illuminated solely by the dull yellow light of
one candle-lantern by which the men worked. The two diggers had
withdrawn themselves, half scared, to the sides of the hole, and were
looking down fearsomely at _something_ at their feet. It appeared that
they were afraid of treading upon this something; at first I could not
tell what they were looking at, but presently my eyes became accustomed
to the gloom. It was a dark patch protruding from the ground.
"What is it?" I asked the men, as we all hung over the edge of the
brickwork.
The nearest man turned a white face up to mine and answered me.
"It's a human 'ead, sir," he said.
I think we all drew back again as he said this, and the doctor stepped
forward with a flask in his hand.
"If you will take my advice, gentlemen," he said, addressing Don Juan
and me, "you will have a nip of this old brandy before we go any
further in this matter. Then I think you had better let me give the
instructions to these workmen, Mr. Inspector, or they may do some
damage unintentionally."
Don Juan touched me on the arm. His hand trembled fearfully.
"Let us come away and walk a little," he said; "the strain of this
affair is too much for me."
I took his arm and walked away with him towards the gate, where now
quite a little crowd had assembled, attracted by the lanterns round the
grave.
Knowing the Don's fondness for smoking and its soothing effect upon
him, I handed him my cigar case, and he took a cigar and lit it. There
seemed to be something in the aroma of the fine Havannahs as I lit one,
too, that dispelled the lurking mouldiness of the old burial ground.
"But for those children playing around that tomb this afternoon,"
remarked d'Alta, "this body might have lain there undiscovered for
years. It was a cunning mind which thought of using an old grave as a
receptacle for a fresh body."
We strolled backwards and forwards on the grass-grown pathway, and I
kept the old gentleman as far as I could from the open grave. The
voice of the doctor giving directions and the muffled answers of the
men working in the excavation came to us occasionally.
Presently, as we turned in one of our walks, I saw the labourers had
come out of the grave and were hauling at something, assisted by the
two policemen.
As I checked the Don in our walk, and looked on, a white mass was
raised from the opening and laid by the doctor's direction on an
adjacent flat tomb.
I shuddered as I saw the whiteness of it in the moonlight, and my
thoughts reverted to the blood-stained figure of the old lady which I
had last seen lying on her bed in the house in Monmouth Street.
The workmen went down into the grave again, and Inspector Bull came
towards us.
"Will you kindly step over this way for a few moments, Mr. Anstruther?"
he asked. "I want to see if you can recognise the body which has been
brought to the surface."
I let go the arm of Don Juan which I had been holding, and with a
sickening feeling at my heart followed Inspector Bull. He led me
towards the object lying on the old moss-grown tomb, and I could not
summon the words to ask him who it was. There was a strong
presentiment in my mind that I should look upon the dead face of the
old lady at whose wish I had crossed the Atlantic.
We came to the body, over which a piece of sacking had been thrown, and
this the inspector drew back, while one of the policemen held a lantern.
In its yellow light mingled with the clear moonbeams, I looked upon the
face, and my heart gave a great leap of thankfulness. The face was
perfectly fresh and recognisable. It was not the face of the old lady
which I had feared to see, but that of a man with a coal-black beard,
which seemed very familiar to me.
I had scarcely looked upon it when a cry came from the grave where the
men were working, and they threw up a white bundle, evidently a bundle
of linen.
This the inspector quickly opened, and displayed a heap of bedclothing
and a pillow all stained with blood.
"Is that all?" asked the inspector, as the men jumped out of the hole.
"Yes, marster," the man replied, knocking the clay off his boots,
"there's naught there now but the coffin of the old 'un, well-nigh
moulderin' away, and the plate says he was one o' the old Mayors o'
Bath."
I turned again to the exhumed body, and the recognition of it came to
me in a flash.
_It was the dark German who had helped to strap me in the chair in
Cruft's Folly, when Saumarez was going to torture me_.